Uneven, But Interesting Horror/Suspense Movie

Rating: 7/10 (30 November 2003)

28 Days Later was a good attempt to make a horror movie that had something more interesting going on than many horror movies. The acting works, and it's not all just one big, predictable bloodbath. Though it's enjoyable, it has a number of problems.
********************* Spoilers Ahead **************************
As soon as I saw Brendan Gleeson (the dad of the little girl) I suspected he was there to get killed off since he was a sympathetic character. Unfortunately I was right--and it was too bad since he was one of the more interesting characters in the movie.
The tunnel scene was just ridiculous and manipulative--since there seemed to be no need to go through the easily predictable "zombie tunnel" when most of the streets and bridges seemed to be clean and rubble and zombie free.
The "Lord of the Flies" military enclave seriously messed up the movie for me. I had a hard time believing that these men had gone so sex-crazed and raving mad in only a month. It was just stretching things a bit too much for me--especially since the commanding officer was smart enough to figure out that the zombies would die after a while and all the needed to do was wait it out.
In fact, the zombies were really so stupid that I had a hard time believing that more people hadn't survived. All it would really take to survive was a good supply of food and water and a strong door to keep the zombies out until they starve. They certainly weren't well organized or hard to outwit--even if they are faster than the old-school zombies.
This movie, as flawed as it was, came off better than a lot of horror movies I've seen. At least we didn't see anyone getting killed during a makeout scene or any of the ultra-predictable horror cliches. I liked that they didn't show everything that happened leading up to this state (such as with a montage), and instead left things up to the imagination. I liked the space in the movie that left you on edge waiting for something to happen rather than making everything into a long, boring, predictable fight scene. The scenes of an empty, silent London were quite cool.
Overall this is an ok movie that squandered its potential to be a much better movie.